


Intoxication, Manipulation and Assignation

by ToryWithAWhy



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-08-10 02:32:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7826791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToryWithAWhy/pseuds/ToryWithAWhy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They clung to one other for what seemed like an eternity, slowly absorbing the reality of the person in front of them, the first embrace they’d ever shared evoking their last parting, the day Lord Eddard Stark rode south from Winterfell, never to return again. <em>They’d never even said goodbye.</em></p><p>It was as if they’d been thrown a fragile lifeline after years adrift in a sea of darkness. A single, delicate thread that bound them to everything they’d ever known, loved and lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I would ask you to bear in mind that I have never written anything longer than a haiku that was not a compulsory assignment of some sort, or a condition of my employment. 
> 
> Why I am attempting a fanfic when I've never written a word of fiction before, I can't really say. I was struck by the unexpected chemistry between Jon and Sansa in S6, which is how I ended up here in the first place. Although I considered Jon's true parentage to be a foregone conclusion, I'd never once even considered an eventual pairing for these two, until someone mentioned it in jest during the reunion in ep4. The more I attempted to make the case for why it could never happen, the more I became aware of too many ironies, paradoxes and obvious corollaries to past events, that strongly pointed to Jon and Sansa as a very real possibility. After factoring GRRM's storytelling into the equation, I am now nearly convinced that it is inevitable, and we have been carefully groomed from the start to find the idea absurd, thus ensuring it's not expected, while also being subtly conditioned not to recoil in disgust when it actually happens. 
> 
> I should probably add however, that the more likely scenario, (along with my primary motivation for writing this) is that I have made a very sound and elaborate case in my head for why it will happen, prompted solely by the onscreen chemistry between Kit Harrinton and Sophie Turner. In which case, props to them for their hotness!

CHAPTER 1

* * *

 

 

When the horn sounded an arrival at the gates of Castle Black, an unexpectedly conflicted Jon quickly fled the pleading scrutiny of Edd's glare, anxious to put an end to the discomforting conversation he'd begun with confidence only to find his long-held notions of duty and honor beckoning him to reconsider.

_For the Watch._

_Your Brothers._

_Your murderers!_

The pleas of his true friend and brother, one of so few he trusts in this world, were not so easily dismissed, but death had hardened his heart. _His watch is ended._

 

* * *

 

Approaching the railing above the keep, Jon attempted to steel himself against whatever shit must naturally accompany an unexpected arrival at the gates of Castle Black. All activity had ceased outside the keep and an eerie quiet had taken hold across the yard as the men of the Nights Watch and Wildlings alike, gaped at the arriving party with something akin to awe in their expressions.

As Jon surveyed the scene below, his gaze fell on the back of one shivering form and he was immediately overcome with a flood of conflicting thoughts and emotions, leaving him momentarily stunned. It was the shining halo of auburn and copper that drew his eyes, in stark contrast to the enduring dullness of Castle Black, like the deep red leaves of a Wierwood tree against a white blanket of snow. _Kissed by fire._ He bit down on his tongue, swallowing roughly as their names rose unbidden, _Catelynn, Ygritte, Melisandre_ , searing his throat as he held them back. The red haired women who always held sway over his existence, determining his fate, commanding his station, his duty, his destiny, each in a way so markedly different from the next.

As the familiar form slowly turned to meet his gaze, Jon willed himself to focus and his awareness returned with a recognition that propelled him backwards, his grip loosed from the railing he rested them on. The fiery red hair freeing him from its hypnotic hold before he is transfixed once again by the astonishing sight before him, unable to breathe, unable to move, an unseen force pulled at his feet, his legs, willing him towards the stairs.

Finally settling on the ice blue pools overflowing with pain and loss, he is overcome with confusion and anger, rage nearly, struggling to reconcile the vision before him with the images that so often plague him with a clarity only enhanced over time, bleeding into his line of sight as if to remind him that the peace and stillness before him is a falsehood, fleeting, that any beauty or goodness he may behold is illusory, a mask that hides the darkness, the terrors that truly hold sway, over both the living, and the dead. A cruel trick meant to impede his departure, it must be a deception. He sees only her.

_Sansa! Sansa? Why is she here? Why would she come here? Not for me? She shouldn't be here! Not here, not now. Gods, I was about to…….._

He did not know how he’d arrived, standing frozen in the middle of the courtyard outside the keep, the steps leading back to the railing he still felt under his palms now yards behind him, unable wrest his eyes from the ghost standing no more than two paces away, unmoving, frozen like the ice in her eyes. Jon could feel the stares of her companions and the other inhabitants of Castle Black staring, questioning, the tension building all around him, but he could not breathe, he could not speak, certain she would disappear if he so much as blinked. _Gods, he felt it._  

 

* * *

 

Pushing away the panic she felt as the mount of Ramsey Bolton's dead henchman carried her through the gates of Castle Black, her eyes scanned the dreary exterior of the Castle, searching for a familiar face among the haggard men scattered throughout the keep, evoking nothing of the Brothers of the Nights Watch as she'd imagined them. Squaring her shoulders and raising her chin like the highborn Lady she is, she recalled Ramsey’s error. 

"Your bastard brother Jon Snow, is Lord Commander of the Nights Watch", he said very slowly, prolonging his words with a peculiar cadence, his bloodstained lash flogging her sex in time with the odd rhythm. Taunting her with Jon's proximity, his eyes were filled with equal parts mirth and cruelty, it filled her with hope and purpose when he intended pain and despair. 

The Lord Commander was not likely to be toiling in the yard, she chided herself, attempting to push Ramsey out of her mind. As if summoned by the acknowledgment of his former title, she could feel his presence behind her, the faces in the courtyard confirming her suspicion as she followed their eyes to the ramparts above, to those familiar grey eyes looking down at her. She was startled by their intensity and a hardness she could not have foreseen in the exceedingly kind, though often melancholy eyes of her half-brother, Jon Snow. This was not the Jon Snow she'd come there to find, not the boy who'd known only indifference from the sister standing in front of him now. 

 _The sister who called him bastard!_   

This kind, handsome face with the eyes of Eddard Stark, did not belong to the Jon Snow from Winterfell, not anymore, this was the face of a man, a warrior, a leader of men _. This was a man who’s loved a woman._ Jon was completely still, gloved hands gripping the railing when her eyes found him. After a brief second she saw a sudden, subtle change in his expression as he let go of the railing, stepping backwards in the same movement. Hoping to see recognition, relief, fondness, anything to indicate he was glad she was there, that she was no longer alone, instead she saw anger, confusion, rage even, not in his expression, only his eyes.

 _Stupid, silly little girl!_ _You were never a sister to him, he hates you and why should he not?_

She was utterly exhausted from her ordeal and devastated by the realization that she was truly and completely alone, that the brother who filled her every waking thought since Ramsey’s mistake, the brother she’d believed would save her, Winterfell, he no longer existed. Sansa felt her cold, numb legs begin to falter beneath her, willing herself to remain standing.

Jon’s face remained still as he alighted the steps from the ramparts, never looking down, his eyes trained on Sansa’s. As he drew closer, crossing the yard in front of the keep, the ramparts now behind him, Sansa studied the stranger moving towards her, suddenly aware of how much he was changed. He was taller by several inches, the soft curls their brother liked to tease him about had darkened and were gathered with a leather strap at the base of his neck, his shoulders were broad and strong, his body was lean, hard and muscled, his face baring the marks of battle and the beard of a Stark, _like fathers, darker though, more like Benjen’s_. A long curved scar began at his forehead, snaking downward over his temple, widening as it went, ending at the top of the cheekbone beneath his right eye. A thinner scar on the left side of his face ran in a straight line from the top of his forehead to the hollow under his cheekbone. His deepest scars were hidden, in his eyes, and elsewhere.

Though she knew his grief for their father, their siblings, was no less significant than her own, she recognized an even deeper sadness that spoke of more, so much more. And she wondered then, what he might see in her eyes, and whether this Jon Snow could know pain and suffering that might even eclipse her own, and she hated herself even more than before, for not being the kind of sister back then, that would allow him to find solace in her now. The silence between them was truly more than she could bear, and as she stifled the sob rising in her chest, Jon stopped in his tracks, no more than a body length still between them, his eyes widened, unblinking. It was only then that Sansa saw a flicker of understanding, concern, lo… something, she could not place it, not exactly, but it was something, and for Sansa Stark in that particular moment, it was...... everything! Her chest swelling with relief before releasing a breath she hadn’t know she held in, she hurled herself forward and into Jon’s strong arms, open and waiting to close around her.  _She felt it._

 

* * *

 

 

They both felt it as they embraced at Castle Black for the very first time. They could only attribute it to the extraordinary set of events that preceded their reunion, it was unlike anything they’d ever felt before.

As Sansa closed the gap between them, her arms outstretched, Jon pulled her in tightly, his chest swelling as he narrowed his hold, lifting her feet from the snow, the bend of his arms perfectly enveloping the small of her waist. Her arms folded firmly around his neck, the rough of his beard against the soft pale ivory of her skin as his hand pressed soothing circles into the curve of her back and she inhaled his soothing scent of leather and a heady mix of ale and smoke. They clung to one other for what seemed like an eternity, slowly absorbing the reality of the person in front of them, the first embrace they’d ever shared evoking their last parting, the day Lord Eddard Stark rode south from Winterfell, never to ride north again.

 _They’d never even said goodbye._  

It was as though they’d been thrown a fragile lifeline after years adrift in a sea of darkness. A single, delicate thread that bound them to everything they’d ever known, loved and lost.


	2. Chapter 2

Sadness and isolation were constants throughout Jon's life, he was always a shy, brooding young man who was quick to anger given how good and kind he truly was. It was the bastard that was brooding and angry, the bastard that was ultimately the source of his melancholy. His true nature was bold and passionate, but he was always kept at a distance from the people he loved, obligated to ignore his wants and desires, made to feel less-than. Though some part of him believed that he wasn't, he couldn’t ignore that the world around him saw him as nothing more than a stain upon a great and noble house. 

He'd grown up surrounded by love, watched his family love one another, and he too was loved by most of his family, but a bastard nonetheless, so he alone could not love, or be loved openly. He knew how a mother loved her children, how she held them, sang to them, nursed them through illness and kissed away their hurts, but he was a bastard. Jon Snow had no mother, no one to sing him to sleep, no one to hold him when he was sick or hurt, never once had he felt the loving touch of a mother that his siblings took for granted. He knew enough of a loving family and a loving marriage to know that it was exactly what he would want, if he were a Stark instead of a bastard, the one thing he truly wanted most of all. He was loving, passionate and loyal, and he had known just enough of love to leave him desperately wanting, whether he’d known it or not.  

Sansa had always known love, she was loved by her mother, loved by her father, loved by her siblings, loved by the North. Sansa could love and be loved, openly, and without limits. She was adored, a true-born daughter of the North, of House Stark, a Princess destined to become a Queen. She'd never known what it was like to feel alone, unloved, less-than, like a bastard. 

_Until she did know. Until she was_. 

The Jon Snow and Sansa Stark from Winterfell, half-siblings, innocents, they no longer existed. They were still a part of the broken pair who met for the first time that day at Castle Black, they were not dead, but little more than their essence remained. They’d endured an entire lifetime of struggle, loss and maturation that accounted for far more of the man and woman they became. They loved the same brothers, the same sister, the same father, they longed for the same home, and they needed each other for that shared history if nothing else.

_But they were not siblings, not then, not ever._

That first night at Castle Black was a respite from the travail and privation of the preceding years, they grieved for the family they’d lost and apologized for what they hadn't been to each other before. She told him of her time in Kings Landing and the Vale, how she escaped Winterfell and found Brienne. _Everything she was able to say out loud._  He told her of his time with the Wildlings, how he'd become Lord Commander, the other war still to come, and how his oath to the Nights Watch had been fulfilled. _He said nothing of the darkness, the nothing._ So much was left unsaid, they'd been through so much and yet they barely even scratched the surface, but they learned more about one another that one night, than in all the years they lived under the same roof.

Sharing Jon’s chambers at Castle Black was not something they discussed. Sansa never told Jon that she couldn’t bear to be alone at night, she didn’t have to, her eyes said enough for him to know she’d suffered in unspeakable ways at the hands of Ramey Bolton. He tried not to think of it because it filled him with a rage he could scarcely control. And if he truly had, it isn’t likely he could have imagined anything close to what Ramsey Bolton was capable of, certainly not the depravities he enacted upon Sansa. Jon’s oath was fulfilled; his watch was ended. He knew he was changed when he couldn’t find it in himself to give a fuck about the propriety of it all, in the eyes of the Nights Watch or anyone else, sister or no. Nor did he have any faith in the honor of his former brothers, even he was not immune to the stunningly beautiful woman Sansa had become, he could only imagine how the other men at Castle Black viewed her.

_Gods, so beautiful._

 Sansa could not have imagined that just being near Jon would so soothe her, they hadn’t been close as children, yet she knowingly sought contact with him because it made her feel safe, comfortable in a familiar way she’d all but forgotten. It was truly unexpected given how little she felt she really knew Jon, he was so different from the quiet boy she remembered that he was nearly a stranger to her now, and she knew little of his true self even when they had shared the same home, the same family.  He was a man in every sense of the word now, his mettle and his honor tested in ways most men never see in their lifetimes, he was hardened, angry at the world and weary, but still good and kind and just as their father had been, and far more handsome and noble than any knight, or prince, or king she had known. Still, there was a familiar foundation that existed between them from the outset that said they were of the same cloth, even though it was as if she’d just met this man for the first time.

She was not at all unaware of the fact that when Jon held her hand, hugged her, placed a hand at the small of her back, what she felt was not something she’d known before. It was innocent, chaste even, but undeniably pleasurable in a way that just made her want to be near him. She definitely wasn’t affectionate with Jon when they were children like she was with her brothers, Jon had known no affection as a child, not from her or anyone else. It was altogether foreign to him, being touched by a woman, platonically or otherwise. He’d been wholly unprepared for the rapture of Ygritte’s touch, the overwhelming ecstasy of it was almost agonizing to him, he was utterly powerless against the urgency of the wanting she awoke within him, to know every part of her, consume her. Ygritte was wild and carnal, there was little soft or gentle in the ways she touched Jon. He knew he loved Ygritte, but that didn’t stop him from wondering if he knew the difference between love and lust, if he’d loved her before he bedded her, or if he truly knew what it was to make love to a woman. He had nothing to compare it to, and he’d wondered more than once if what he did with Ygritte wouldn’t more accurately be described as fucking. 

Jon accepted the contact Sansa initiated, responded as he knew how, understood what she sought and tried to give her every bit of peace or comfort he could, even though every time she touched him he was less able to ignore how breathtakingly beautiful she was, truly the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. He was also painfully aware of the fact that he accepted the contact because it just felt really fucking good.

_Gods, it felt good_.  

This woman was so remarkably different than the girl he recalled; he was amazed by how strong she’d become, how unfazed she was by the lack of proper decorum and the vulgarities which were germane to the Free Folk and Castle Black in general. She didn’t even seem to notice the mud and horseshit that stained her skirts, nothing he remembered of Lady Sansa Stark of Winterfell could have prepared him for that. She was clearly wizened for a woman of just 8 and ten years, cunning even, her biting wit and her intelligence had actually startled him on occasion. He never thought her dim or simple minded but terms like foolish and vapid had crossed his mind a time or two more than he’d care to admit. In truth, she was a generally kind, good-natured girl, naïve and innocent really, and she’d never been cruel or outwardly rude to Jon, she just didn’t seem all that aware of him much of the time. She was a trueborn Lady of a Great House, a future Queen in a world of honorable Knights and noble Princes, there just wasn’t a place in that world for a bastard half-brother.

That this woman was altogether different, yet still a true Lady in every sense, made of steel but sheathed in silk and satin, was what Jon admired about her most.

That he often forgot he was a bastard when he was with her, of all people, was something else entirely, something he chose not to think about because he couldn’t decide how he felt about it, how he should feel about it.

Something Jon did know all too well, was how pain and suffering changed a person, and he was not without shame for preferring the woman she’d become.

 

 

* * *

 

  

She was struck by the similarity as she silently stood over him that first night at Winterfell. Sansa had just returned from the kennels when she found Jon in the solar adjacent to the Lord’s Chambers, leaning over the small table their father used for writing, brooding and alone as he’d spent almost all of his time at Winterfell when they were children. It irritated her then, never once did she really consider what it must have felt like to be unwelcome in the only home he’d ever known, she just wished he would go find someplace else to mope. She felt so small as she looked at him then, it sickened her to think of how little he mattered to her once.

The cold air still clung to her skirts and the sound of Ramsey’s futile commands giving way to snarling hounds and tearing flesh still filled her ears. The monster deserved to die that way, she had no regrets. Though a public beheading in front of the Northern Lords would have carried some political benefits, it would have been an acknowledgement of his existence, his relevance, that Sansa sure as hells wasn’t willing to give him. She could only hope Jon that would feel similarly.

Jon’s face and torso were covered in dark streaks, a mix of mud, dried blood and horseshit. Wearing only his boots and breeches, his face was down, a cup of ale in one hand and his forehead resting in the palm of the other. The jerkin he wore during the battle was slung over a chair in the corner, caked in mud and slick with blood, the blood of Ramsey Bolton, and of the countless men slain at his hand in the battle for Winterfell.   

 He was a sight to behold when Sansa spotted his lithe form slashing and tearing across the field of battle, instinctively dodging, weaving and spinning himself just out of reach of their attacks as he moved methodically forward, untouched, answering each one with a single swing of his sword, felling more men than she could keep count of. Until he was swallowed by a sea of death, only to reappear as he summited the mountain of carnage that buried him alive only moments before. His eyes locked on Ramsey Bolton the moment he cleared the pile of bodies, never losing sight of his enemy as he charged the hill to Winterfell flanked by an actual giant. 

He’d dropped his sword as he reached the courtyard and advanced on his target unarmed and unblinking, raising a borrowed shield with lightning precision to catch each of Ramsay’s loosed arrows until he closed the distance between them, putting Ramsey on his back with a single blow before straddling his limp body and beating him to within an inch of his life with his bare fists. _It was truly the stuff of legends and prophecies_ , she couldn’t help but think as she watched it all unfold. 

A washbasin sat on the table across from Jon, the water in it still clear and clean as he’d meant to wash but couldn’t summon the energy. He didn’t speak and his eyes were hidden behind the hand supporting his head. She couldn’t decide if he was awake so she stood in the doorway watching him, waiting for a word or a snore, something to confirm he was alive, whether he was present. Jon remained completely still as she slowly stepped towards the table, reaching for the cloth in the basin of water, the water still slightly warmer than the air in the room. As if from a distance, hoarse and weary, the sound of his unfamiliar voice startled her.

“Why Sansa?” Jon croaked as her heart stilled, rising in her chest. Her mind going first to the kennels but she quickly realized the error.

“I didn’t know if they would come, Jon.” _She didn’t, but that wasn’t it, not entirely._

“So many men Sansa, men who gave their lives fighting for us, for Winterfell, the North. Men I commanded Sansa, my responsibility!” His fist slammed down on the table nearly tipping the cup of ale. His words somewhat slurred, his volume blunted by exhaustion, his anger though no less apparent. _His hurt._

She had never seen Jon truly angry, not towards her. She recalled the image of Jon straddling Ramsey Bolton, his fists raining down on the face she sees in her nightmares, the wild look in Jon’s eyes when they found hers. He was truly the white wolf in that moment, primal, a predator and Ramsey his prey, his eyes hungry and thirsting for blood as he slowly rose and gave her his kill. _No small feat for a wolf._

“Had I known of the Knights of the Vale, even of the possibility Sansa….…..” Jon’s words trailed off, he was deep in his cups, afraid of what he might say, _whether it even mattered, whether it was true._

Jon finally raised his haunted eyes to look at her. 

“You told me Lord Baelish sold you to you to the Bolton’s?” It was a question.   

“He did.” She whispered in response.

“Aye, and yet you trust him?”

“Only a fool would trust Littlefinger.”

Jon shut his eyes briefly, lids moving slowly, the weight of being indebted to a man that couldn’t be trusted pulling them closed.

“You didn’t learn of the Blackfish while you were still being held by the Bolton’s, did you Sansa?” He asked as he reopened his eyes.

“No.” She did not elaborate.

It’s as if he is looking through her, past her, his gaze heavy with both ale and fatigue.  He places his hands on the table, attempting to push himself to a standing position, his movements restricted by drink, exhaustion and the beating his body endured in the battle, his muscles having stiffened from sitting.  He made to move towards the door, slowly, pausing to steady himself, still covered in blood and filth.

Sansa raised her hand to stop him, placing it softly on his shoulder as he made his way past her.

 “Jon.” His eyes closed, wincing at the contact. She slid her hand gently down the length of his arm, taking him by the hand to slowly guide him to the armchair in front of the fire.

“Sansa, I ...” He began in protest, the touch of her hand leaving him unable to think, even less able to speak.

 Jon had been restless and exhausted in equal measure since the night his Brothers lined up to murder their Lord Commander, citing their loyalty to the Nights Watch he was elected to command.

  _For the watch, for the watch, for the….._

Within the safety of Winterfell, the battle finally behind him, the weeks of campaigning and anxiety that preceded it, and his inability to sleep since becoming acquainted with the darkness he cannot forget; not even scaling The Wall after weeks endless hiking through Wildling country had left him so utterly exhausted. He felt as though he were carrying the dead weight of each of his murderers on his back, his limbs were so heavy. The “goats milk” from the Free Folk he’d washed down with too many cups of ale to count, no doubt contributing to the effect. He could barely keep his eyes open but was suddenly fully alert behind his heavy lids, he’d wanted to throttle her, he should be angry, he is angry, but something else entirely kept him consigned to that chair…

Seated before the fire, Jon is leaning back in the chair, his eyes heavy and clouded with drink as Sansa moved another chair opposite his, placing the water basin on a small table beside her. Kneeling at his feet, she slowly removed his boots, placing them on the hearth. He sat there frozen, peering down through heavy lids at her shining red hair, the already fiery color dancing in the light from the fire. His head is spinning and he doesn’t know if she should stop her, _if he wants to stop her_.

Standing briefly, she pulled the chair closer and sat before him, their knees touching as she reached into the washbasin, wringing the excess water from the cloth. Leaning forward, she raised the cloth to gently wipe the blood and muck from his face _._

_So handsome._

As she begins at his forehead, his eyes close and his breathe catches in his chest as he tries to control his breathing. She methodically makes her way downward, removing the streaks of filth from his neck and his shoulders, her cool fingers grazing his bare skin at the base of his throat, his collarbone. He is shaking, her touches lingering against his skin, his pulse racing as his senses are overwhelmed.

She moves the cloth down over his chest and his jaw clenches tightly, his eyes widening with fear. He looks at her downcast eyes as she carefully navigates the cloth over the stab wounds covering his chest and abdomen, his muscles tensing beneath her. Returning the cloth to the basin, Sansa slowly raises her hand to Jon’s his chest, her delicate fingers lightly tracing the crescent shaped wound at its center. He watches her, still frozen, her blue eyes pooling with tears. His breathing is labored, his chest rising and falling as she lifts her eyes to his, a tear sliding down her cheek. His eyes are wide with panic.

_Bloody hells, I cannot bear this! What is wrong with me!? I want her! My whole life I’ve spent wanting; wanting what I could not have, wanting beyond all sense and never taking, never having, yet I think I have never wanted anything as fiercely as I want her._

Jon didn’t know how he was able to stop himself after the battle, his every heightened sense commanding him to take his prey, the scent, sound, even taste of the blood yet pulsing through the black heart of that putrid little prick urging him onward. He’d never enjoyed war or violence, but the feel of Ramsey Bolton’s face fracturing beneath fists was a perversely pleasurable experience.

The wolf had taken hold long before he began pummeling the life from the Dreadfort’s bastard, he was more beast than man, feral and savage and out of control. He’d known death and there was nothing, darkness, and when he thought the battle lost, he sought the nothing, felt the darkness overtaking him, almost relishing in it, but the wolf would not submit. And the wolf yet reigned once the fighting had ended, primal, savage, wanting. He’d wanted to kill, to rage, to destroy, to fuck, to live, without care or caution, heedless of honor or decency.

_Fuck honor!_  

He’d only sought refuge in the solar when he could not drink enough to quell the mutinous urges roiling inside of him.

_I cannot be near her as I am. She cannot know what she...how I……what she is doing...to...arghhh...FUCK!_

"Sansa!" He yells, leaping abruptly from the chair as if burned by her touch. He'd been transfixed, her ministrations so blissful he'd been unable to flee or protest, and he was losing control.

 Startled by his sudden movement and the harshness of his voice when he spoke her name, Sansa rose to her feet in answer. Fearing she'd hurt him, she lifted her hand to his face in concern.

They stood mere inches apart, tears streaming down her face, his fists balled, his jaw clenched tightly. Sansa shuddered with guilt and confusion, an ache she couldn’t make sense of rose in her chest, constricting her throat, a feeling of want unlike any she'd ever known, she did not understand what this was. She only knew she would do anything to make him forgive her.

He caught her hand before it found its target, holding it firmly against his chest, his stormy grey eyes staring into hers, almost as though he were looking for someone else. _For his sister._

_He hates me!  How could I be so stupid, why wouldn’t he hate me?! What can I say to make him understand, I don’t even understand!? Gods help me, I cannot be alone again. Not now, not after everything……._

Jon’s eyes were wild, feral. His breathing ragged and his chest rising and falling unevenly as he emanated a low, barely audible growl. Jon was in agony and Sansa saw his suffering, knew she was the cause of it.

She leaned forward, resting her forehead against his, her free hand curving about the back of his neck as if to hold him there.

“Sansa.” He hissed her name coldly, like a warning _._

“Jon, please, I…..

“Don’t...” He rasped breathlessly.

Sansa searched desperately for the right words, anything to assuage his anger, but she couldn’t form a coherent thought. She didn’t fully understand why she kept her treaty with Littlefinger from him.

“Jon?” He didn’t hear her.

“Jon, I d...”

 “Get out!” He roared unbidden as he dropped her hand and turned towards the fire, his muscled form shaking visibly in the firelight.

His words were a mortal wound and she backed away in stunned silence, watching as he shook with rage, desperate for some sign of hope to take with her.

As she rounded the corner to exit the solar, she chanced a final, pleading look in his direction. Presuming she’d already taken her leave; Jon warily placed a hand on the mantel to steady himself, then lowered his head in shame as he exhaled with an audible, guttural growl.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the kind words on the first two chapters. I Should have chapters 4-5 up in the next couple days.

Bring me to his paradise  
a feeling of within,  
naked to his loving eyes  
caressing me with sin  
I long to feel his softest kiss  
upon my dampened skin

_~ Amanda D Besserer_

 

_Sansa's head thrashed against the pillows, her hair and shift clinging to her sweat slicked skin as she sought purchase, her heels prodding frantically into the mattress._ _Gaining no traction as she fights to break free, her legs burrow deeper and deeper into the snow. She feels a massive weight crushing her chest, pinning her under the snow, as cold, sharp fangs begin tearing at her limbs. Her body stills as its teeth clamp down on her throat, silencing her screams as it waits for the life to drain from her body. The cold stabs at her like shards of glass, cutting through her flesh and filling her core with a heavy ache that slowly dulls to numbness. She is drowning in blood and snow as she futilely tries gasping for air, feeling nothing but warm pulses of blood trailing over her icy skin and pooling in the snow beneath her. There is only white, endless white, then the darkness. The air shifts around her almost imperceptibly as slivers of light begin to invade the blackness. The weight of the beast no longer pinning her to the snow as she gasps to draw in a wheezing, strangled breath. An agonizing scream in the distance shatters the silence, growing, closer as a stabbing pain rips through her chest, the sound fills her ears as the pain rises to her throat._

She clutches her damp shift over the pain in her chest, the thin fabric balled in a shaking fist as she is awakened by her own screams. Her breathing is labored as she slowly takes in her surroundings. _Winterfell._ The pain in her chest softening to a dull ache, her head begins to throb as she is assaulted with images of the previous day.

_The battle, Rickon, Littlefinger, the Knights of the Vale, Winterfell, Ramsey, the kennels, the solar, Jon...._

Her stomach twists and tightens as she scurries to the wash basin to retch, violently, emptying her stomach as the last thing she remembers comes to the fore, his words ringing in her ears.

_“Get out!”_

Every agonizing second replaying over and over in her mind as she collapses back onto the bed and weeps.  

She had only the vaguest memory of climbing into bed. Mercifully, sleep must have taken her quickly as she couldn’t recall the hours of restlessness that always kept it at bay. Restful sleep had eluded her since her first captivity at Kings Landing, when her girlhood dreams became her waking nightmares. Sansa hadn’t been able to fall asleep alone since the night of her wed.......... not without Jon, nor had she intended to, she realized then.

_Did you really imagine he would not view your actions as a betrayal? You knowingly chose to deceive him, did you even consider how he would feel? And you called him the fool, too naive for the game, deaf, dumb and blinded by his stupid honor. You who declared yourself a player and cast your lot with Littlefinger. You who thought yourself equal to the calculations of a man like Peter Baelish?_

 

* * *

 

Sansa spent the first full day at Winterfell busying herself with the more immediate needs of the household and staff, avoiding the Great Hall and anywhere else she was likely to run into Jon. She wasn’t prepared to see him and she wasn’t ready to confront the fact that she’d lost the only living person she cared about before the battle had even begun.

She hadn’t survived Ramsey Bolton after all, not intact. She was well and truly fucked up and she didn’t know who she was anymore. The realization that she hadn’t even considered Jon felt like a kick in the stomach. She’d taken him completely for granted throughout her scheme, like an unfeeling monster.  Winterfell was a hollow victory without her family, without Jon.  

After a claustrophobic afternoon indoors, Sansa decided to chance a few minutes on the battlements for some fresh air, a white raven had just arrived from the Citadel announcing the arrival of winter and she needed to clear her head.

_Winter is here!_

As she reached the top of the stairs leading to the battlements, her pulse quickened as she saw the main gates below closing behind the departure of a lone rider. After avoiding him all day like a coward, she may be seeing Jon for the last time as he rode away from Winterfell without a word, just as they both had when they last left their home, a memory that filled her with shame when they were reunited at Castle Black.

He’d planned to ride south the day she arrived, but he stayed for her, waged a war for her, and she repaid him by driving him from his home.

When the rider reappeared beyond gates, her panic subsided as the deep red cloak identified the departure as Lady Melisandre. As she returned her gaze to her path, Jon stood on the battlements just a few paces ahead, silently watching the same scene below as the Red Woman’s silhouette faded into the horizon.

He looked as though he was contemplating a matter of no small significance and she wondered what might have precipitated the Lady’s sudden departure. She wanted to speak t him, plead for forgiveness, anything that might fix the damage she’d caused, but she had no words of explanation to offer him. She stopped short of his position, his tension was palpable as he turned to face her.

_Let him speak._

“I’m having the Lords Chambers prepared for you.” He offered in a low rasp.

_What? Does he mean to say he is leaving? He is going to leave Winterfell!_

“Mother and fathers room?" She almost squeaked in confusion _._

_“_ You should take it.” She quickly added.

_I don’t understand! Why is saying this?_

“I’m not a Stark.” He argues, his pain at this truth evident.

“You are to me!” She saw the hurt in his stoic expression as he stared into snowy expanse outside the walls of Winterfell.

  _Please don’t leave me here alone! Gods, I’ve been so stupid; I don’t even know why I didn’t tell him._

 “You’re the Lady of Winterfell, you deserve it. We’re standing here because of you. The battle was lost until the Knights of the Vale rode in. They came because of you.”

  _A far kinder assessment than his first._

 “You told me Lord Baelish sold you to the Bolton’s.” Jon asks before she can respond, just as he had the previous night.

 “He did.” She replied, a bit too quickly as a mix of guilt and relief washed over her with a new understanding. _He doesn’t remember._

That morning found Jon in awkward repose, shirtless and sprawled before a spent fire of embers ashes, his bare skin married to the cold stone floor of his father’s solar. He’d awoken from a dream with a violent headache assailing his senses, painfully aware of every war-weary muscle in his body, and vowing to banish “ _that ginger fuck_!” Tormund Giantsbane, beyond The Wall, should the ornery oaf even so much as mention that rancid blight he and the Free Folk call “Goats Milk” in his presence again. Still clad in the same soiled breeches he’d worn during the battle; the foul odor that permeated them the prior day had sufficiently ripened overnight, that he could scarcely contain the impulse to retch as he slowly rose from the chilly floor and retrieved his boots from the hearth.

As the hazy veil from his drunken slumber lifted, Jon was enervated by the dissonant thoughts and feelings dueling for supremacy inside of him, while his traitorous body waged its own sort of mutiny, heedless of reason, propriety or even sanity. From the very first brush of her fingertips against his bare skin, his cock was hard with his arousal; a single touch in an otherwise muddled dream, and he could scarcely recall the fury that consumed him just a few hours before.

 Jon shared little acquaintance with sleep as he’d known it before; his death’s preternatural annulment had somehow rid him of this most natural necessity for the living. On the rare occasion he had slept, his dreams were of nothing, silence, as if he’d never left the darkness. That he has since known grief, pain, even pleasure and joy, no matter how fleeting, clearly manifest he is not dead, that he was truly among the living however, Jon was not convinced. _Surely a man unable to dream cannot count himself amongst the living._

Jon did not know why he was able to sleep that night, nor whether the battle, or his return to Winterfell, had restored something he’d lost to the darkness, but he did know why he’d dreamt of Sansa, his body made that much clear. She’d come to clean and treat his wounds after the battle, not his bloodied hands or the small cuts he’d earned in the battle for Winterfell, but the mortal wounds that marked his chest and abdomen, wounds that should only be worn by a dead man. The little he could clearly recall of his dream was equal parts agony and ecstasy. He was incoherent, unable to move or speak, only to watch helplessly as she wiped the filth from his face and body, gently cleansing his wounds. She was an angel from the heavens, more beautiful than any sight he’d ever laid eyes on, dreaming or awake. He’d never known such pleasure before, not even in his sweetest dreams, the feel of her hands against his bare skin held him in rapture. When he awoke in his father’s solar, he hadn’t forgotten her betrayal, but his anger had all but evaporated. In its place was a somber resignation; he wanted Sansa like nothing he’d ever wanted before and he would never have her, just as he could never leave her.

Aye, and yet you trust him?” Jon asked her again.

“Only a fool would trust Littlefinger.” She repeated. “I should have told you about him, about the Knights of the Vale. I’m sorry.” She added, without attempting to explain or excuse what she could not.

Jon did not condemn her actions or demand an explanation, he did not ask how she could ask him to wage a war against the monster who raped and tortured her, only to align herself behind his back, with the man who’d sold her to him in the first place.

_And he said nothing of the pain of knowing she thought so little of him, that she felt a man such as Littlefinger more worthy of her trust._

“We need to trust each other, we can’t fight a war amongst ourselves, we have so many enemies now.” His eyes bespoke his sadness as he concluded his appeal.

He then lifted his hand to her face, his fingers curving around the base of her neck to pull her closer, and pressed his warm lips to her forehead in a single, gentle kiss.

As his gloved hand made contact with her skin, something stirred in Sansa, an unspoken pull not entirely dissimilar from the way it felt when Jon held her in his arms at Castle Black, but this was more, so much more, pervading more than just her body alone. That the only person who’d ever made her feel such things could be Jon, is Jon, is what she could not understand. She’d nearly been overtaken by the urge to collapse into his arms, her desire to feel him arms around her was overwhelming. When his lips left her forehead, she felt him hesitate and thought for a brief second that he might actually kiss her, and she wanted him to kiss her, she ached for it. It was not the first time her body responded to Jon's touch, his very presence, in ways she hadn’t understood, but now it was perfectly clear. He made her feel breathless, wanton, she ached to be near him, touch him, taste him. She wanted Jon.

_Gods, what might he think of me if he knew? Honest, honorable Jon? He would be horrified, think me wanton, no better than a whore! I am a sister to him, no matter if he is no brother to me. I know of sisterly affection, how it feels, and what Jon makes me feel is in no way sisterly. Is this my late husband’s final violation? Has Ramsey ruined me so completely that I can wish for my own brother to kiss me, to touch me, to bed me? That I would feel no shame at all if he wanted the same? My Lady Mother certainly saw to that, didn't she?_

As much as Sansa once cared about her mother’s opinion, it was only Jon’s that mattered now.  Jon Snow and her home, Winterfell, were all that mattered anymore, and she knew then that there could no longer be one without the other, not for her. If House Stark is to hold Winterfell, or have any chance at surviving the long winter…

_I can't let him see, he can never know!_

 

* * *

 

The afternoon before of the feast that saw Jon named King in The North, Sansa slipped into the cold steel armor of detachment she’d worn to shield her emotions throughout her captivity.

She hadn’t spoken more than a few words in passing with Jon since a single kiss had set her adrift in a raging sea of warring emotions. She tried to will away the memory of it with all of her strength, yet she could still feel his soft lips lingering on her skin, marking her forehead like a brand. _Nothing would ever be the same._

She was angry with Jon for making her feel things she did not wish to feel, while asking her for trust that he himself had not given. She felt an indescribable urge to lash out, wanton and wrathful in equal measure, like a predatory impulse, carnal & instinctual.

So it was with her newly acquired taste for vengeance still fresh in her mouth, that she trained her ire, _and her weapons,_ on Littlefinger, reveling in the power she held over him, indulging his lecherous fantasies, playing Queen to his King and leaving him wanting.

Her parry with Littlefinger had been a release, lessening her anger, her desire for….. She was pleased with herself as she left Lord Baelish thirsting near the Godswood, it felt exhilarating to best her teacher. She saw his hubris and the lust clouding his judgment, offered him just enough encouragement to extract his secrets, his true motives, before walking away as he stood beneath the Godswood, seething and breathless with desire.

Her triumph was short-lived, as one look from Lord Peter Baelish was all it took to disabuse her of her notions of victory. She’d made a grave mistake. 

The King in The North!

The King in The North!

The King in The North!

His cold reptilian eyes scanned the hall, his soulless gaze briefly meeting her own, conveying his malice, his intent, and his target. _Jon!_


End file.
